Friday, January 7, 2011

My Irresponsibility Know No Bounds

Week 4: 1/3/11 - 1/9/11 (14 weeks remain)

The goal for this week was twofold: get back to Cambridge, and get back on track training-wise.

Monday: 6-mile run with the Caltech XC team on their first day back from the break. Saw Gustavo, Garrett, Anton, Chief, etc. Picked it up a bit on the way back. Pretty good overall.

Tuesday: Flew back to Cambridge.

Wednesday: Spent all day running around trying to get my apartment/lab back into some kind of shape after having been away for a month.

Thursday: 5 miles on the treadmill (couldn't get out of lab until 7:30 IN THE PM!). Received public flogging from Megumi for my irresponsible behavior over the previous couple of weeks regarding workouts.

Friday: 10 mile loop around Fresh Pond, 29 degrees. Went kinda not-too-well, actually. I haven't been sleeping well the past couple of days (still getting over jetlag, and trying to switch my sleep/workout schedule so that I get up and run in the morning's when it's still light outside). Legs felt kinda dead throughout pretty much all of the run. On the plus side, it was really pretty out! There's snow all over the place, and the section of the Charles between MIT and Harvard has almost completely frozen over. I'm going to try to get some photos of it tomorrow, perhaps.

Saturday: 5 miles on the treadmill. Didn't run outside today, as it was snowing.

Sunday: 18 miles, long run (10-mile Fresh Pond loop followed by 8-mile Boston Common & Commonwealth Ave loop). Got out at 8:45 this morning for the week's long run. We had fantastic weather today; it was a (relatively) balmy 32 degrees, sunny, the sun came out from slight clouds around 10:00 or so, and some snowfall last nig
ht meant that everything had received a light "dusting" this morning. When I looked out my window this morning, I decided that everything looked so damn beautiful outside that I should take my camera with me.


Street outside my dorm


Local park


John W. Weeks Bridge (the Charles is completely frozen over).


I was out early enough that I caught up to the snowplow.


Fresh Pond loop


Harvard Boathouse


MIT's Building 5 (the banners are for the Institute's 150th anniversary celebration).


Memorial Drive


Boston Public Garden


Storrow Drive running/biking trail


Even after having lived here for almost half a year, I am still amazed at how beautiful New England is :-D !

The run itself went pretty well; I started feeling the first effects of fatigue around the 15-mile mark, but not the ZOMG-JUST-LET-ME-DIE kind of fatigue that characterized the first longer runs I started doing at this point last year. Altogether, I was pretty pleased.

Total weekly mileage: 44 miles

2 comments:

Megumi said...

Cupcake, love the pics of my old 'hood! Have you ever noticed that when the snow gets all packed down, its almost like running on a nice soft trail? Hope the huge storm isn't too bad, hang in there!

Dave said...

Yeah, the compacted snow is definitely nice :-). Although recently, a lot of the snow has converted to ice, which is significantly less nice :-/.

Speaking of your "old 'hood", where around here were you from specifically?